According to the National Institutes of Health, organisms in a biofilm state cause 80% of all infectious diseases. Biofilms are the predominant cause of chronic pulmonary infections in Cystic Fibrosis, Ventilator Associated Pneumonia, burn infections, and wound infections. Biofilm infections are up to a thousand times more difficult to treat than conventional infections.
Biofilms are the result of single or multi-colony bacteria living together in a group. When the group has sufficient population, a protective film is formed over the colony. Biofilms can be responsible for inter and intra bacterial communication as well as modifying the genetic expression within the colony. Biofilms can be present in almost all environments, such as water supply systems, oil wells and pipes, and human tissues.
Biofilms are a very important part of the natural environment and can be beneficial. However, biofilms can profoundly affect human health and industrial productivity. Biofilms pervasiveness effects human health, water quality, corrosion, and power generation efficiency. Additionally, biofilms contaminate surfaces in the food processing industry, and deteriorate air quality in ventilation and air handling systems. Biofilms infections and related complications cost the United States billions of dollars per year.
Clinical wound pathogens associated with chronic infections are often associated with the formation of single or polymicrobial biofilms leading to impaired wound healing and clinical complications. In order to effectively test bacteria in biofilms, they must be grown in an appropriate laboratory environment with proper controls to assure integrity of the sample. Currently, there is no technologies or systems that can effectively grow biofilms quickly with uniformity and reproducibility. A system and method is needed in the industry that can quickly and efficiently grow microbes and biofilms, and can generate robust and efficient in-vitro testing of anti-biofilm properties for wound care products, oil field biofilm prevention, water system biofilm prevention and others.